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At least 1 post per week (frequently 2 or 3): Primarily Epic Card Game strategy articles. Game reviews and other game-related posts are possible as well.

Core Token Control

Forward

In a recent article, I created a poll to determine which of my core only decks for the digital alpha I would discuss next, this deck won that poll.

This article follows the progression of my core-set-only Core Token Control deck. I start by explaining how I created the experimental, untested deck (in preparation for the core only alpha for Epic Card Game Digital). Then, I plan on updating this article with an analysis of how the deck performs, in addition to explaining any changes I make to it (assuming it performs well enough to update).

Next Deck Article

In anticipation of the Alpha hopefully coming out today, I have gone ahead and posted the decklists and taken pictures of the other 4 core-only decks I have made. Whichever deck generates the most discussion (based on comments below) will be the one I write an article for next.

Wild (9)

Prototype Explanation

Deck Idea

I’ve warned against Human Token Swarm decks for a long time, even though they haven’t shown up much in the competitive meta, yet. Therefore, I really wanted to create a human token deck, especially since I think The People’s Champion is a strong card, even though it hasn’t fit into many of my decks.

Dark Leader is a 4 toughness body, that produces an extra 2/1 in stats every other turn while boosting humans by 1 offense and making them gain Evil in addition to their other alignment. While this can help non-Evil human loyalty effects like High King or Time Bender, and if you have Dark Leader in play, you can play Courageous Soul into The Risen, but none of those effects are worth a card slot to include, or a gold to play.

In order for Rally the People to be better than Fireball at dealing direct damage to your opponent, you need to hit with 4 of your champions already in play. Sure, you get an extra human when you play it, but that human can’t effectively gain blitz that turn (since if you play it before Secret Legion it doesn’t buff those human tokens created). You can also recall it, but if I don’t want to play it for free, why would I spend a gold to return it to hand? With the recall effect on a free card, it can be used to double buff champions already in play, but that still seems awful. One redeeming quality of it is that it does buff Lord of the Arena just enough to let it break Sea Titan in combat. While a certain guest blogger, might find it “really good” in this type of deck (taken only slightly out of context– 01:14:20), he’s wrong. Or at least I think he is, if anyone wants to convince me otherwise, the best way to do so is to beat me with it.

Of the few times I have played Standard Bearer, it is occasionally been surprisingly powerful. A static +2 offense buff can make certain champions (particularly human tokens) a lot more impactful. However, it only buffs Good champions and core set only doesn’t have enough ways to continuously produce incidental Good champions. Due to that, I feel Standard Bearer doesn’t offer enough for a gold expenditure. For it to be worthwhile, you need to already be decently far ahead, and it still gets sweeped up by all 1-cost board clears.

I do not like Deadly Raid. Many other people do. Using it to buff a bunch of tokens increases the value of the +2 offense buff, but it does little else and still leaves you vulnerable to board clears. Unblockable is nice and can get you past a stalemate, but stalemates frequently don’t last long in Epic anyways. (I’d much rather use it to make my one Steel Golem unblockable than 6 human tokens.) Think of it this way, it gives you the same offense boost as Rally the People, Recall, Rally the People except you trade unblockable for 2 human tokens, but at least you can draw 2 with Deadly Raid.

Drinker of Blood is interesting. It allows you to partially clear the board while gaining you health and losing your opponent health. This followed by Flash Fire can wipe out your tokens and convert them each into 4 health swings. Surprise Attack this in and then on your turn Zombie Apocalypse followed by Flash Fire/Wither, pretty nasty. One problem with this is that Drinker can frequently be dead in hand until you draw your combo pieces. Without immediately comboing, it can get bounced or banished for no effect. For these reasons, I don’t usually like it.

Wolf Token Cards

Frequently overlooked, Pack Alpha‘s ability to repeatedly put 2 3/3 wolf tokens into play is better than you think. Wave of Transformation is also great if you go wide with tokens, your opponent loses incredibly powerful champions, you upgrade/trade your tokens for wolf tokens. Wolf Companion can technically produce a wolf token when recalled or banished/recycled from your discard pile, but the +2/+2 effect is really weak. I also usually don’t consider Wolf’s Call a strong card because it is too easy to clear away the wolves at little cost to your opponent.

Evil Token Cards

Plentiful Dead is a great way to continuously pump out incidental tokens, if you have enough Evil cards to make it worthwhile. Infernal Gatekeeper, Demon Breach, Word of Summoning are all playable token spawn cards with The Risen being on the edge (Trihorror is pretty bad because it is too slow and easy to deal with effectively). Unfortunately, demon tokens don’t care as much about going as wide (getting a bunch of champions in play) as human tokens or even zombie/wolf tokens, since demon tokens are big enough to be threatening with only a few of them. In addition, I already have a Core Evil Tokens deck.

Inner Peace replaced Angel of Light because it can be recalled and the extra 5/6 body is less relevant in this deck. Angel of Mercy was dropped due to less Good champions. Avenging Angel stayed because it is a great on-turn must-answer gold-punisher. By this point, I had shifted away from a human token swarm one-shot kill emphasis deck towards a grindy control deck. The People’s Champion and Pack Alpha produce the tokens I use to attack my opponent and slow their aggression, while everything else is there to halt their progression.

Since I plan on incidentally going wide throughout the game, I expect to draw out my opponent’s board clears early, particularly 0-cost semi clears like Flash Fire and Wither. Ideally, they will run out quickly which allows my Wolf’s Calls and Secret Legions to function as off-turn gold-punishers to keep my chip damage going. These cards can also be used as on-turn gold-punishers. If I played my Pack Alpha last turn and expended it this turn, playing Wolf’s Call lets me threaten 18 damage: 6 wolves with blitz and +1/+1. Wolf’s Call is also a great punish for an opponent who Wave of Transformations on my turn while my gold is up.

Drinker of Blood

Drinker of Blood can also work nicely in this deck, in theory. If I have significant tokens in play at the start of my turn, either incidentally or after playing an off-turn Wolf’s Call/Secret Legion, I can drop Drinker while my opponent’s gold is up. This makes all of my tokens into 4 health swing bombs if blocked. Answers for this play include: off-turn AoE board clear, bounce/banish Drinker, or Ceasefire/Ice Drake.

Erase is usually a strong answer against Drinker and other slow champions, but in this case, it leaves the rest of my tokens free to attack that turn, same with all other non-breaking/damaging targeted removal. Ceasefire and Ice Drake can punish this strategy hard though.

Thought Plucker

When I went back to my deck to find a way to force in a single copy of Amnesia, I realized that this deck probably wants Thought Plucker, which means I have to defend that choice, which I don’t want to do…but I will. Dang you Dixon!

Thought Plucker is an incredibly powerful card. It is an ambush champion that immediately draws a card and forces your opponent to discard. Even better, it repeats this effect every time it damages your opponent + it’s unblockable. If unanswered, Thought Plucker is one of the quickest ways to completely decimate an opponent.

With the addition of Uprising and Tyrants, players get access to Wolf’s Bite/Blind Faith/etc. which can answer Thought Plucker much more effectively, but without them, Thought Pluckers are real threats, which is why all of my decks are forced to include multiple answers for them. However, Thought Pluckers can also be punished by opponents who include Soul Hunters and/or ally -> recall cards. These cards can either punish a forced discard or largely negate it. Since I believe the best players will have punishes/answers for Thought Pluckers, I usually don’t include them in my decks.

Chump Sea Titan and attack past it with tokens. The Sea Titan will eventually get caught up in a board clear.

Thoughts/Concerns

This deck is a pretty big departure from my preferred style of play, so it is even more experimental than some of my other core only decks. Also, as a player who focuses on midrange decks, a few of those cards spilled in that many other control players might not include.

In addition, this deck seems like it will be very easy to misplay and will require significant patience.

Aside from that though, I just want more discard pile banish. It was really hard to go down to 2 Guilt Demons, but I didn’t see anywhere else I wanted to cut for my Amnesia. On a side note, I do think 2 Drinker of Blood is correct instead of 3. While I see myself finding an opening to play it in most matches, it is frequently a dead/unplayable card for large stretches of a game. Therefore having 3 in hand would generally be an auto-loss.

2 thoughts on “Core Token Control”

Dark Leader makes all of your human champions Evil (in addition to their starting alignment) as soon as they enter play.

Once a champion enters play, their loyalty 2/X trigger gets added to a heap. When you go to resolve the loyalty trigger, you reveal cards matching the alignment(s) of the champion with the loyalty trigger. At this point, that champion is both its starting alignment and Evil, so you can reveal cards of either/both of those factions to satisfy loyalty.

This does not work for ally triggers though, since ally triggers are triggered by playing a 1-cost card of that alignment from your hand. In other words, the trigger triggers before the champion can gain Evil granted by Dark Leader.